The narratives we create in order to justify our actions and choices become in so many ways who we are. They are the things we say back to ourselves to explain our complicated lives. Perhaps the reason you've not yet been able to forgive yourself is that you're still invested in your self-loathing. Perhaps not forgiving yourself is the flip side of your stealing-this-now cycle. Would you be a better or worse person if you forgave yourself for the bad things you did? If you perpetually condemn yourself for being a liar and a thief, does that make you good?
We are suffering a national defeat comparable to any lost military campaign, and what is more, it is self- inflicted? It is about time that we pulled our fingers out? The rest of the world most certainly does not owe us a living.
Social issues have been used to distract Americans from their own self interests since Nixon's southern strategy, and now people are paying the price.
I knew that was really the only purpose of life: to be our self, live our truth, and be the love that we are.
The problem is that we as a society simply accept these unrealistic standards: that you have to be thin to be perfect, to be beautiful, to be successful at work and to have a good relationship. And it is making us sick. This self-loathing is crippling women.
Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age. ]
A state arises,as I conceive,out of the needs of mankind;no one is self-sufficing,but all of us have many wants
Proficiency in art is a contract with your self and the empowerment of your self. Not all of us demand or even desire proficiency, but for those who do it's necessary to temper the influence of groups. And while some artists think history is bunk, the historical evidence is overwhelming: "In my isolation I grow stronger. "
Some of my friends and family have tried to challenge me to do jokes that aren't as self-deprecating, where I genuinely express my own opinion in my own voice.
When you learn economy. It strips away self-indulgence. Just in the act itself it requires a certain amount of humility. You have to accept the fact that you might feel you can do better but in the moment you have to make a choice.
To me, the human move to take responsibility for the living Earth is laughable - the rhetoric of the powerless. The planet takes care of us, not we of it. Our self-inflated moral imperative to guide a wayward Earth, or heal our sick planet, is evidence of our immense capacity for self delusion. Rather, we need to protect ourselves from ourselves.
I had good relationships with stores. And I was like, "All right, I'll self-publish it. But I'm only going to do 1,000. "
I like women who are self-sufficient.
A self-made man may prefer a self-made name.
I look for the moment(s) in the story where the writer risked abandoning the glory of the self in favor of the possible relationship with an other. I don't ever let the market tell me what a memoir is. The first best memoir I ever read was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
There is a dance only you can do, that exists only in you, here and now, always changing, always true. Are you willing to listen with fascination? If you are, it will deliver you unto the self you have always dreamed you could be. This is a promise.
To make a record requires a strategy; it's not just throwing somebody in the studio and seeing how it goes. Some artists are self-contained, but they still need advice about producers and collaborations and single choice. They need an army and a perspective and creative friction, because nobody has all the ideas.
If you wou'd be reveng'd of your enemy, govern your self
Judgments of others contribute to self-fulfilling prophecies.
no one in a group of three is the same person he (she, it) is in a group of two. No more than he is the same in a group of two as he is alone.